Joined company in 2014, when we were still just about 100 employees. It has been a challenging, exciting, and fulfilling 3+ years since then.

Proud of what my team and other teams have accomplished before and after the Amazon acquisition in 2014.

Culture has scaled amazingly well as employee count has gone through explosive growth. 100 to 1000+ employees in 3 years. Majority of us still know how to have fun together, newer and older employees a like.

Cons

Collaborating with Amazon teams was a little rough at first but has gotten increasingly better, at least in my org.

Internet company with a unique community sometimes goes over the heads of employees not familiar with the culture.

The food and snack perks are amazing and micro kitchens are loaded with healthy organic snack options. The overall environment itself is relaxed yet there is an expectation to work hard and smart and fulfill your responsibilities. Because of the scale of the number of users, one gets to work on building large scale systems. Having AWS as a parent has its perks where experiments with multiple machines and services can be done easily without going through the red tape for budget approvals. There are many exciting opportunities and the company is growing really fast. The compensation is comparable to other good tech companies out in the valley for similar roles.

Cons

Twitch has grown extremely fast in the last couple of years and the dust is still settling in in terms of the settling of direction of larger groups within the company. It still appears to be in some experimentation phase and in the process of figuring out where the next big break through will be achieved. In order to become visible there has been some ongoing struggle within different teams vying for the real-estate on the home page, and an absence of a CPO is sometimes felt greatly. Some people who have been here for a while feel that it is hard for them to have a career growth within the company and only recently measures have been introduced to try to mitigate that issue. But the jury is still out to what the outcome of that may be.

Advice to Management

Communicate a clearer vision to the teams, which are then motivated to achieve it together as a company, rather than trying to push each other down to become visible to the upper management.

Get to work in the gaming industry. They have free food on specific days and massages at times.

Cons

Pretty much everything here is negative. The HR department and executives rarely respond to pressing needs. Leadership and direction are missing across the board here. No clear direction and reviews on employees and performance are a complete mess!

Advice to Management

Honestly, there needs to be an entirely new management team at the highest levels.

- Great food perks, though these have slowly been dwindling for each passing week- Smart people, there are a handful of bright individuals that help you learn- Strong brand, great loving community- Flexible work schedule

Cons

- Misguided CEO that tries to take on too many rolls (We have no CTO, CPO, or arguably CEO)- Constant reorgs without clear alignment and direction- Inadequate management, while there are a handful of good managers at Twitch, an overwhelming majority are poor (first time managers, usbpar engineers)- Toxic culture, there are adversarial relationships rampant at the company and the product reflects this division- Compensation and vesting schedule is below market- Morale has been slowly taking a dip

Advice to Management

Replace ineffective leaders with the right people. Align priorities across all organizations and teams.

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. Please know that we take this type of feedback seriously and are actively addressing where we’re not on target. I've personally delivered this feedback to our executive team meeting. We're looking at compensation data with plans to adjust where we're not in line with market value.

- Fast-paced work environment, challenging problems to solve- Be a part of a large and growing video streaming platform- Catered food, snacks; dog-friendly office (SF)- Company makes genuine efforts to preserve a fun startup culture

Cons

- Chaotic, very little actual organization or process- Process which is in place is frequently not followed- Poor work/life balance- Many individuals hired for the wrong reasons, lack of experience- Immature and unhealthy culture and social environment- Lack of focus on product quality, insufficient time for proper product testing- Management and leadership often out-of-touch, inexperienced

Engineering takes a back seat to getting releases out. Frequently these releases have key features (or sometimes even central features) removed to hit deadlines. We used to have centralized quality teams, but they've been cannibalized for feature team headcount. The result is slower development because each feature team is having to create their own operations and development tools because what's left of devtools can't support the company anymore. There's no good way to share these tools cross-org. A lot of teams have insane deadlines and overwork themselves trying to hit them. Product quality is in free-fall and everyone's more interested in tricking amazon into thinking we're accomplishing things than improving anything. Quality of life is trending downward- perks are being cut, food/drinks aren't being restocked, wage increases were below inflation last year org-wide. Half the company's manager upline doesn't go through the CEO and instead goes through some Amazon guy now. Things are going bad real fast. A new building is opening up next year but they're cutting 6 inches off everyone's desk to make it work, it's not clear how we'll fit our monitors in our workstation at that point.

1. Too much company politics. 2. Career growth as a software engineer is basically nonexistent. There are basically 4 levels of Amazon software engineers. L4, L5, L6, and L7. L6 and L7 basically being virtually impossible to achieve here at Twitch. They seem to hold it hostage against you and never grant it. Most of the L6 engineers have been hired in. Promotions are very very rare and almost never happen at Twitch. If you are joining this company, my advice for you is to be happy at your current role and pray that the product is enough for you to stay at this company despite no career advancement. If that is not enough, you will not be happy at Twitch. I have known L5s who have been at this company for a long time and have had no career growth with their manager being fully aware of their aspiration for a promotion. I'm leaving this company once I get another offer

Advice to Management

Please look out for the interest of your direct reports instead of yourself. That is the definition of a good manager.

Thank you for your feedback, this has been delivered to our executive team and we are working diligently to solve for career advancement. I encourage you to speak with your manager or HR business partner. I'd also be glad to put you directly in touch with Sally to discuss.

- Incredibly political. Junior managers care more about looking good to the executives than about creating quality products.- No career growth. Executives are more interested in surrounding themselves with their friends then bringing in competent people. Senior people report into Junior people then give up and leave.- Lack of product focus. Every org is building products outside their goals. If you don't agree with a strategy problem you are reorged.- Feels like an Amazon takeover is eminent.

Stay away for now until the dust settles.

Advice to Management

Don't pit your employees against each other. The entire environment feels like a chapter of "Lord of the Flies". Double down on senior people.

Thank you for sharing your feedback. The People Partner team is actively working on career development opportunities. We encourage our staff to participate in submitting their goals weekly within their 15five and reviewing these goals and objectives within manager 1:1s. We strive to find the best qualified candidates for every open position. As we grow and scale, more opportunities become available internally to Twitch employees and a formal internal transfer process has been built to ensure transfers are being conducted fairly. I encourage you to speak directly with your manager or HR business partner.